The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Columbia University have been honored by the American Chemical Society (ACS) for their groundbreaking discovery of deuterium, or “heavy hydrogen,” in 1931. The ACS Division of the History of Chemistry presented the ACS Citation for Chemical Breakthrough Award to NIST during a ceremony at the agency’s headquarters in Maryland.
The discovery was made by NIST physicist Ferdinand Brickwedde and Columbia physicists Harold Urey and George Murphy. Urey later received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery. Deuterium is now used as a non-radioactive tracer in scientific and medical research and in studying thermonuclear fusion reactions.
Source: https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2008/11/nist-columbia-honored-1931-discovery-heavy-hydrogen
Keywords: deuterium, isotope, hydrogen
